The attacks on French churches are still going on, as reported by Breitbart a few days ago:
"Two men are accused of breaking into a church in the French commune of Tarbes and vandalising the place of worship and soiling books with faeces.
"The church attack occurred on Wednesday afternoon (11/20/19) and saw the pair, who are still at large, take out prayer books which they proceeded to tear up, set on fire, and soil with human waste...
"The pair also emptied an entire fire extinguisher, threw a statue at the church’s benches, and toppled a crucifix which they also tossed to the ground."
Note: "The attack comes just weeks after thieves used a car as a battering ram to break down the historic doors of the UNESCO-recognised Oloron-Sainte-Marie cathedral in the French Pyrenees where they stole multiple gold religious objects."
These attacks have been happening all over France for a couple of years now. The extent of Muslim involvement is unclear and the motivation behind the attacks seems to be varied. According to the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, the latest incident doesn't appear to have been an act of desecration "in a purely religious meaning," but it's hard to tell the difference between desecration and simple vandalism. From what I've read, a lot of these attacks are apparently being carried out by French leftists. The Sainte-Marie d'Oloron attack, on the other hand, seems to have been a straightforward robbery.
The bishop wonders "whether or not, in the wake of the attack, churches in France should be equipped with CCTV cameras to prevent further crimes from happening." I'm amazed that this hasn't been done already.
Latest news on the Notre Dame fire can be found here. The fire happened on April 15, 2019. The very next day -- before any investigation could possibly have been completed -- the Paris prosecutor announced that there was no evidence of arson. I'm not sure how long the investigation lasted or how thorough it was, but the story mostly vanished from the news around June of this year. As far as I know there was never any definitive conclusion about what started the fire.
"Exorcism is going multi-denominational. Where once those competing for the souls of followers would burn each other as heretics and engage in bloody wars, the world’s mainstream Christian denominations are now rallying together to battle a resurrected threat." Source: Perth Now.
"And that’s no less than Satan himself.
"The Roman Catholic Church has for the first time opened up its annual exorcism class in Rome to representatives of all major Christian faiths. The Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum is a Vatican-affiliated university in Rome that has been conducting the increasingly popular annual exorcism conventions for Catholic priests for the past 14 years."
Video from 2010.
Note: Exorcism or similar beliefs and practices go way back:
"The use of protective means against the real, or supposed, molestations of evil spirits naturally follows from the belief in their existence, and is, and has been always, a feature of ethnic religions, savage and civilized. In this connection only two of the religions of antiquity, the Egyptian and Babylonian, call for notice; but it is no easy task, even in the case of these two, to isolate what bears strictly on our subject, from the mass of mere magic in which it is embedded. The Egyptians ascribed certain diseases and various other evils to demons, and believed in the efficacy of magical charms and incantations for banishing or dispelling them. The dead more particularly needed to be well fortified with magic in order to be able to accomplish in safely their perilous journey to the underworld (see Budge, Egyptian Magic, London, 1899). But of exorcism, in the strict sense, there is hardly any trace in the Egyptian records." Source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.
Exorcism is usually associated with the Catholic Church and backwoods fundamentalist denominations, but rituals for casting out demons and other types of spirits have also been used by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Taoists over the millennia. (Wikipedia) And the practice is still relatively common around the world. For instance, the next video shows a Buddhist Ghost Exorcising Festival which took place in Bejing in 2015.
Despite the fact that magic and religion are supposed to be different things [1], exorcism is undoubtedly a magical ritual since it relies on sacred ceremonies and the recitation of adjurations, etc., to ward off or drive a supernatural entity out of a place or a human body. How is this different in practice from, say, a pagan magic ritual designed to calm a storm or appease the gods and guarantee a safe passage?
"For the storm lasted for three days; and at last the Magians, by using victims [cut up in pieces and offered to the manes] and wizards' spells on the wind, and by sacrificing also to Thetis and the Nereids, did make it to cease on the fourth day." (Herodotus)
[1] "Magic is a category into which have been placed various beliefs and practices considered separate from both religion and science." (Wikipedia)
The fact that exorcism is still practiced by the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations provides more evidence, I think, that Christianity is actually a polytheistic religion.
Exorcism, by definition, is "the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or an area..." (Wikipedia) Polytheism is, by definition, "the worship of or belief in multiple deities," so the question of whether a belief in demons makes you a polytheist boils down to whether you think demons or "spiritual entities" qualify as deities.
The word "deity" has various associations. It can mean a god or goddess, a "supernatural being considered divine or sacred," but it has also been defined as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans ... who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life..." (Wikipedia)
Demons may not be as powerful as God, but they are still supernatural entities with powers greater than those of ordinary humans. They are part of a hierarchy of spiritual beings. It might be more accurate to call them demigods, a term that was originally "used to render the Greek and Roman concepts of semideus and daemon." (Wikipedia) "Demon" comes from "daemon" which was the original meaning of "demigod," and demigods are minor deities.
In some cases, demons are or were actual pagan gods. The demon in the Exorcist, for instance, was Pazuzu, a "character from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology ... considered the king of the demons of the wind, and the son of the god Hanbi..." (Wikipedia) If Jesus, the son of Yahweh, is a deity, then so is the demon Pazuzu, the son of Hanbi.
Modern exorcists believe that there are other supernatural entities active in the world besides God. Some of these entities are demons who were once fallen angels. Others are pagan gods transformed into demons by the church. This belief in a hierarchy of spiritual beings is fundamentally pagan and polytheistic.
"The constructive characteristics of the Gothic style are unique in the history of Architecture. Gothic cathedrals pushed structure to the limit -- soaring cross-vaulting, pointed arches (1), hollow walls and piers covered with tracery -- and used the arch as an external brace, the flying buttress, to form one of the most beautiful stylistic elements of the Gothic style." Source: Mathematical Models of Gothic Structures (PDF).
(1) The pointed arch was likely borrowed from the Islamic architecture of Spain.
"The style represented giant steps away from the previous, relatively basic building systems that had prevailed. The Gothic grew out of the Romanesque architectural style, when both prosperity and relative peace allowed for several centuries of cultural development and great building schemes. From roughly 1000 to 1400, several significant cathedrals and churches were built, particularly in Britain and France, offering architects and masons a chance to work out ever more complex and daring designs." -- "Gothic Architecture: An Introduction," the Khan Academy.
"The battle was a significant defeat sustained by the crusaders during the Northern Crusades, which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land. The Crusaders' defeat in the battle marked the end of their campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Slavic territories for the next century."
It's easy to forget that the Crusades weren't just fought against Muslims in the so-called Holy Land, but against pagans and other Christians in Europe. Technically, a crusade was any church-sanctioned campaign and military/religious orders, i.e., organized gangs, like the Teutonic Knights were used to forcibly convert or slaughter unbelievers and suppress rivals to Rome's hegemony. And these "holy warriors" went rogue sometimes, operating like bandits or mercenaries in the pursuit of their own interests when they weren't massacring Jews and Saracens or attacking Christian kingdoms.
This is how "orthodox" Christianity took over the West. The Eastern Orthodox Church managed to stand up to the onslaught, however. It is now the second largest Christian church in the world, due in large part to its military victories over Catholic forces:
"In the Battle of the Ice, the Teutonic Knights [1], a Catholic group, attempted to invade Russia and convert the Eastern Orthodox population of the Republic of Novgorod. This military campaign was part of the so-called Northern Crusades. Teutonic Knights involved in the Battle of the Ice were mostly Estonian, German, and Danish." Source: National Geographic.
"Russians, led by legendary figure Alexander Nevsky, repelled the invaders. Today, Lake Peipus still forms the central border between Russia and Estonia. Russia remains overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox and Estonia remains Catholic and Protestant."
[1] "Throughout the 13th and 14th century CE the Catholic Teutonic knights crusaded in Prussia and the Baltic area mainly against pagan Lithuanians and Orthodox Russians, but as the order was bent on expansion for its own sake, many other nationalities were fought besides those." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)
Despite the fact that he agreed to pay tribute to the Golden Horde, Alexander Nevsky is a legendary figure in Russia, a major national hero. Churches and cathedrals have been named after him. "On 24 September 2008, St. Alexander Nevsky was declared the main hero of Russia's history by popular vote ... In December 2008, he was voted the greatest Russian in the Name of Russia television poll." (Wikipedia)
"Hail and take heed, this is the tale one of the most famous Russian Heroes in history, second only to perhaps Vladimir of Kiev, the Baptizer of All Rus’. Few leaders have captured the hearts and minds of the Russians like Alexander Nevsky, who was voted Russia’s greatest leader of all time in 2008." Source: Russia Insider (2018).
"Tensions are high in the reconstruction project for France’s Notre Dame cathedral after an Army general appointed by President Emmanuel Macron has told an architect fighting for the original spire design to 'shut his mouth.'" Source: RT.
"It’s not a fight you expect to see very often, but the reconstruction of the fire-gutted Notre Dame cathedral has led to a showdown between the chief architect and General Jean-Louis Georgelin, appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron to pilot the restoration project."
Report from June 2019.
Comment: This is part of an ongoing fight over how the cathedral should be rebuilt. The jackass Macron and the general he put in charge of the reconstruction project want to give the structure "a more contemporary look," i.e. they want to turn it into some of kind of postmodern monstrosity. Meanwhile, Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect, wants to rebuild the cathedral as it was before the fire, or as close to the way it was as possible. In other words, he wants to restore the cathedral, not destroy it.
RT doesn't get into the specifics about what they were arguing about, but it appears that the general thinks that the architect should just shut up and do what he's told:
"Asked about Villeneuve's point of view, the general said: 'As for the chief architect, I have already explained that he should shut his mouth.' He added that all involved with the project need to 'move ahead in wisdom so that we can serenely make the best choice for Notre Dame, for Paris, for the world.'"
What a pompous ass. Note that the general seems to think that the decision about how to restore the cathedral is still a matter of debate even though that question was supposedly decided months ago:
"What is strange about the whole debate is that it is happening at all. When a 'contemporary' redesign was first mentioned, there was a major public outcry. The French Senate even voted that the cathedral must be restored to its original glory."
In other words, the senate vote meant nothing at all. Big surprise.
The fight over the reconstruction of the cathedral is one skirmish in the larger war between the forces of tradition and cultural disintegration which is occurring all over the West. If Macron and his pet general get their way, they're liable to turn Notre Dame Cathedral into a public greenhouse or something even worse. If that happens it would have been better if the cathedral had just burned to the ground.
As for the fire itself, we still don't know what caused it. The French government announced almost immediately that no foul play was involved and stories surfaced a few days later that the blaze was probably electrical in origin. Or maybe it was caused by a cigarette butt. Nobody seemed to know at the time and we haven't heard anything since. The fire was international news for a week, maybe, then it just vanished from the media as if it had never happened.
Ten-to-one it was arson, but I'm not holding my breath for the Macron regime to admit it.
Note: General Georgelin received a public reprimand for his comments. That's probably just as meaningless as the French senate's vote, but it's something, I guess.
"Melted scaffolding atop fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral will be removed “in the coming weeks” to allow restoration work to begin next year, France’s culture minister said Tuesday." Source: France 24 (Oct. 2019).
"It’s been six months since an April 15 fire gutted the medieval Paris structure, which was under renovation at the time and crisscrossed with scaffolding where its spire once stood."
1,707 years after Galerius's Edict of Toleration ended the persecution of Christians which started under Diocletian, the religion that once exercised absolute dominion over the West is rapidly disappearing from Europe. That's not very surprising, though. Even the United States is becoming less religious and Christianity as an institution has been in decline for a very long time now.
(1) Early Christianity wasn't a single movement with a unified belief system, but this gradually changed after Catholicism became the official religion of Rome and the church began its centuries-long process of stamping out "heretical movements." Very roughly speaking, and taking into consideration the fact that the eastern and western churches of the time had distinct differences, Christianity survived as a near-monolithic religious institution for about a thousand years before it started to fall apart.
Video from 2016.
The rise of science and the spread of secularism accelerated the decline of Christianity in the West. Some denominations have attempted to "adapt to the times" by dropping or "interpreting" their mythology and transforming themselves into little more than progressive social-work institutions, but these congregations are in rapid decline. Conservative churches which preach a defiant fundamentalism are thriving in the United States and Christianity is apparently exploding in the Third World.
According to Chuck Colson, "the percentage of the world's population that is, at least by name [emphasis added], Christian will be roughly the same in 2050 as it was in 1900. By the middle of this century, there will be three billion Christians in the world -- one and a half times the number of Muslims. In fact, by 2050 there will be nearly as many Pentecostal Christians in the world as there are Muslims today.
"But at that point, only one-fifth of the worlds Christians will be non-Hispanic whites. The typical Christian will be a woman living in a Nigerian village or in a Brazilian shantytown."
After almost 2,000 years, the historical trajectory of the rise and fall of Christianity is becoming clear. The religion originated in the Near East, spread into the Roman empire, rose to the height of its power in medieval Europe, then began to fragment and decline. This decline has been a long, complex process that started centuries ago and it has accelerated dramatically during the last hundred years or so in the western, developed world:
"The decline of Christianity is a widespread, ongoing phenomenon that has affected the Western world, developed countries and denominations in the post-World War II era, which have shifted towards a post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural, and multireligious society. Infant baptism has declined in many nations. Thousands of churches have had to close or merge and mainline Protestant denominations in the United States lost many members of their congregations." (Wikipedia)
Christianity has been struggling to survive the transition to the so-called postmodern world, itself a symptom of the overall decline of the West. The religion has been under attack for a long time now, but the biggest problem is that religion in general is no longer believable to most educated people. In Europe, even the church's own leaders don't seem to believe its teachings anymore, a sure sign that the religion is in its last stages in countries like Britain, where many churches are being closed, turned into historical museums or converted into mosques. As a result, Christianity is dying off in the West and thriving in the Third World. It will survive in the form of die-hard fundamentalist sects and the various syncretic mixtures of Christianity and native religions now spreading through places like South America, Asia and Africa.
Video from 2010.
Christianity is finished in Europe and declining in the United States, but it will continue to thrive in its original form as a prescientific, preliterate religion in the Third World. "In 1900, 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and North America. In 2000, 60 percent lived in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with many in developing countries." (Facts and Details) By 2050, if present trends continue, "four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa" and "the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world." (Pew Research Center (2015))
The execution of the Protestant scholar, William Tyndale, who was condemned for heresy, then strangled to death and burned at the stake in 1536 AD, tells me everything I need to know about the nature of the early Catholic church. It was a sadistic, totalitarian organization that maintained its grip on its flock through terror and mystification.
Tyndale, a leader in the Protestant Reformation, was condemned partly because he was the first to translate the Bible into English from the Greek and Hebrew texts. The King James Bible drew heavily on Tyndale's [partial?] translation. "One estimate suggests that the New Testament in the King James Version is 83% Tyndale's and the Old Testament 76%," according to Wikipedia.
Translating the Bible into English was something the Catholic church couldn't permit. If ordinary people could read the Bible for themselves Rome would lose its monopoly on the faith, not to mention a lot of its secular power, so the church had to make sure it controlled the message.
Translations of the Bible had to be carefully restricted and regulated. Latin versions were OK because only the churchmen and elites could read Latin, but the last thing the church wanted was an English version that the plebs might actually be able to understand and interpret for themselves. The first English translations of the New Testament had to be printed overseas and were apparently smuggled into England in bales of cotton. At the time, these were probably the most dangerous books in the world to possess. Note: Even possessing a Bible is still dangerous in some places.
During Tyndale's lifetime, Rome didn't want people being able to think for themselves. As far as the church was concerned, the best way to fleece the sheep was to keep them in a state of illiteracy, ignorance and passive obedience. It was a particularly insidious form of social control reinforced with bloody punishments for "heresy." Imagine living under a regime where you have to obey laws written in a language you can't understand. That's what the situation was like, but in the case of the medieval church, if you broke the law you not only faced burning at the stake but eternal damnation.
The church's policy was a form of mushroom management. It's no wonder that the peasants eventually revolted. The war for the English Bible was similar in some ways to Prohibition in America where high-quality booze -- the "real stuff" -- had to be smuggled into the country from Canada and the Caribbean. The church didn't have any more chance of containing the thirst for knowledge during the Reformation than the US government had of containing the thirst for liquor during Prohibition, and the democratization of knowledge exploded with the invention of the printing press:
"In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies." (Wikipedia)
William Tyndale was a key figure in the war for the English Bible. The eventual publication of the King James Bible, based partly on Tyndale's work and authorized by the Church of England, itself a reaction against Catholic corruption, was a victory for free thought.
"In 2015, Jeffrey Alan Miller, an English professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey, stunned the academic world with his announcement, in the Times Literary Supplement, that he had discovered 'the earliest known draft of any part of the King James Bible, unmistakably in the hand of one of the King James translators.' This year [2019] Miller was awarded an NEH research fellowship to bring out a critical edition of the draft, and, as we went to press, it was announced that he had won a MacArthur 'genius' grant." Source: National Endowment for the Humanities (2015).
The King James Bible is an English translation carried out "by 6 panels of translators (47 men in all, most of whom were leading biblical scholars in England) who had the work divided up between them: the Old Testament was entrusted to three panels, the New Testament to two, and the Apocrypha to one." (Wikipedia) The work was started in 1604 AD and completed/published in 1611. The drafts or notebooks that Jeffrey Miller discovered were written by one of these translators, a Puritan theologian named Steven Ward (1572–1643).
Note: The KJ version wasn't the first English translation of the Bible. According to Wikipedia, "[t]he followers of John Wycliffe undertook the first complete English translations of the Christian scriptures in the 14th century. These translations were banned in 1409 due to their association with the Lollards," a pre-Protestant reform movement within the Roman Catholic church which was eventually condemned as a heresy.
These early English translations of the Bible were illegal. According to Wikipedia,"the spread of Wycliffe's Bible in the late 14th century led to the death penalty for anyone found in unlicensed possession of Scripture in English, although translations were available in all other major European languages." The books themselves were burned by the orders of the Pope and at least one of Wycliffe's followers, Jan Hus, was burned at the stake for criticizing the extremely corrupt church and promoting the radical idea that people should be able to read the Bible in their own language.
The traffic in holy relics was one of the biggest scams perpetuated by the medieval Catholic church, ranking up there with the sale of indulgences. Relics were tourist attractions in the middle ages, just like they are today. Back in the medieval world, an insignificant local parish could become wealthy and famous by attracting pilgrims, so it's not very surprising that relics were in high demand. They could be almost anything -- the bones of a saint, a lock of a martyr's hair, the "Holy Prepuce," the fingernails of an early church father, a vial of sweat from the brow of Jesus, a scrap of wood from the True Cross, etc., etc. Most, if not all of them, were fake, of course, but the faithful never asked any questions.
Relics are sacred power objects. They're also infectious, i.e., the magical power in a relic can be transferred to another object by contact, thus creating an almost infinite supply of relics which can then be set up in their own shrines.
"...relics aren't necessarily always body parts," according to Vice. "They come in three different flavors: First-class relics are body parts, second-class relics are pieces of clothing or things the saints touched while they were alive, and third-class relics are objects that other relics have touched. A relic has power no matter where it falls on this hierarchy, which is why you have so many lying around, and so many folks praying to them."
Body parts had the most talismanic power and were highly prized for their ability to extract money from pilgrims. For example, the bones of Saint Nicholas were thought to exude "a clear watery liquid which smells like rose water, called manna (or myrrh), which is believed by the faithful to possess miraculous powers," according to Wikipedia. The pilgrims who came to see these holy objects provided a major boost to local economies. Like modern tourists, they had to eat and sleep somewhere while they were in town. They would buy food, lodging and local products, not to mention the donations they made to the church.
Pilgrims still pay homage to the relics of St. Nicholas.
Abrahamic religions supposedly condemn idolatry, but if this isn't idolatry, I don't know what is. And there's no telling where these venerated objects came from originally. The conventional history of Nicholas's relics is a classic example of the way the relic traffic worked in the medieval world:
"Nicholas' tomb in Myra had become a popular place of pilgrimage. Because of the many wars and attacks in the region, some Christians were concerned that access to the tomb might become difficult. For both the religious and commercial advantages of a major pilgrimage site, the Italian cities of Venice and Bari vied to get the Nicholas relics. Taking advantage of the confusion, in the spring of 1087, sailors from Bari in Apulia seized part of the remains of the saint from his burial church in Myra, over the objections of the Greek Orthodox monks." (Wikipedia)
That's one story, anyway. There was no method for determining the authenticity of body parts in the middle ages, so the sailors could've just brought back some animal bones and passed them off as the bones of Saint Nicholas. Who would know the difference? And who knows if the original bones in Myra actually belonged to the saint? One way or another, the monks had good reason to complain about the theft of their valuable relics. Without them, they'd go out of business.
The Shroud of Turin, probably the most famous talismanic object associated with the Catholic church, is still a source of revenue. The church doesn't charge to view the shroud, but it attracts thousands of visitors every year and all kinds of shroud-related trip packages, hotel deals and walking tours are available at a price (1). And the controversy over the shroud's authenticity has spawned a minor publishing market for books arguing one side or another.
(1) Catholic pilgrimages, like Holy Land vacation deals, are a big business, and sometimes include an "audience with the Pope," assuming he isn't busy telling Europe to open its borders to unlimited immigration or trying to figure out how to deal with the church's latest pedophile scandal.
Next video shows Pope Francis praying in front of the Shroud of Turin back in 2015.
The belief in relics is still alive and well. In the case of the shroud, which is almost certainly a medieval forgery, many Christians are convinced that it actually shows the face of Christ despite the fact that no one knows what Jesus looked like (assuming that he ever actually existed). As for relics in general, a lot of people, especially in the third world, still believe that the remains of saints and various objects associated with church legends have some kind of supernatural power to heal disease and forgive sins.
In other words, a lot of Christians are devout fetishists.
Christianity Is Becoming A Third-World Religion (Updated)
1,707 years after Galerius's Edict of Toleration ended the persecution of Christians which started under Diocletian, the religion that once exercised absolute dominion over the West is rapidly disappearing from Europe. That's not very surprising, though. Even the United States is becoming less religious and Christianity as an institution has been in decline for a very long time now.
The history of Christianity has been one of schisms and fragmentation, a long process of disintegration caused by theological disputes, administrative squabbles and church corruption. When the Catholic church lost its monopoly during the Protestant Reformation, Christianity as a unified institution (1) ceased to exist. Protestantism itself went through a long chain-reaction of schisms with the result that there are now hundreds of Christian denominations in the world.
(1) Early Christianity wasn't a single movement with a unified belief system, but this gradually changed after Catholicism became the official religion of Rome and the church began its centuries-long process of stamping out "heretical movements." Very roughly speaking, and taking into consideration the fact that the eastern and western churches of the time had distinct differences, Christianity survived as a near-monolithic religious institution for about a thousand years before it started to fall apart.
Video from 2016.
The rise of science and the spread of secularism accelerated the decline of Christianity in the West. Some denominations have attempted to "adapt to the times" by dropping or "interpreting" their mythology and transforming themselves into little more than progressive social-work institutions, but these congregations are in rapid decline. Conservative churches which preach a defiant fundamentalism are thriving in the United States and Christianity is apparently exploding in the Third World.
According to Chuck Colson, "the percentage of the world's population that is, at least by name [emphasis added], Christian will be roughly the same in 2050 as it was in 1900. By the middle of this century, there will be three billion Christians in the world -- one and a half times the number of Muslims. In fact, by 2050 there will be nearly as many Pentecostal Christians in the world as there are Muslims today.
"But at that point, only one-fifth of the worlds Christians will be non-Hispanic whites. The typical Christian will be a woman living in a Nigerian village or in a Brazilian shantytown."
After almost 2,000 years, the historical trajectory of the rise and fall of Christianity is becoming clear. The religion originated in the Near East, spread into the Roman empire, rose to the height of its power in medieval Europe, then began to fragment and decline. This decline has been a long, complex process that started centuries ago and it has accelerated dramatically during the last hundred years or so in the western, developed world:
"The decline of Christianity is a widespread, ongoing phenomenon that has affected the Western world, developed countries and denominations in the post-World War II era, which have shifted towards a post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural, and multireligious society. Infant baptism has declined in many nations. Thousands of churches have had to close or merge and mainline Protestant denominations in the United States lost many members of their congregations." (Wikipedia)
Christianity has been struggling to survive the transition to the so-called postmodern world, itself a symptom of the overall decline of the West. The religion has been under attack for a long time now, but the biggest problem is that religion in general is no longer believable to most educated people. In Europe, even the church's own leaders don't seem to believe its teachings anymore, a sure sign that the religion is in its last stages in countries like Britain, where many churches are being closed, turned into historical museums or converted into mosques. As a result, Christianity is dying off in the West and thriving in the Third World. It will survive in the form of die-hard fundamentalist sects and the various syncretic mixtures of Christianity and native religions now spreading through places like South America, Asia and Africa.
Video from 2010.
Christianity is finished in Europe and declining in the United States, but it will continue to thrive in its original form as a prescientific, preliterate religion in the Third World. "In 1900, 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and North America. In 2000, 60 percent lived in Africa, Asia and Latin America, with many in developing countries." (Facts and Details) By 2050, if present trends continue, "four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa" and "the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world." (Pew Research Center (2015))
Related:
Why There Is No Way Back For Religion In The West.
Is Religion Dying Out?
Where Churches Have Become Temples of Cheese, Fitness and Eroticism
Posted at 06:59 AM in Catholic Church, Christianity, Collapse, Commentary, Europe, Religion, Videos | Permalink